Time for Telluride: 6 all-star films this weekend in Portsmouth

The halfway point of the month of September means schools are back in session, summer clothing is being traded for hooded sweatshirts and the trees will soon start changing color.

Fortunately for the Seacoast, September also means the return of the Telluride by the Sea film festival to The Music Hall's Historic Theater and The Loft, in downtown Portsmouth.

Now in its 19th year, the three-day cinema-filled weekend, running Sept. 15 to 17, will feature six films direct from the prestigious Telluride Film Festival in Telluride, Colorado, held just a few weeks ago. Portsmouth residents and co-founders of the East Coast version, Bill and Stella Pence, along with Chris Curtis, film and outreach manager for the theater, and the rest of the talented staff of The Music Hall, will again provide audiences with a movie experience they will remember forever.

According to Curtis, the film selections for the annual weekend of new cinema are always chosen with the goal to create “a balanced program. Hopefully, there's something from another country, as well as some English language titles. Hopefully, there is some good drama and some good comedy. (We're) trying to lay out a weekend that is not going to be by any means one note. It's going to have as many notes as possible to really find something that everybody can sink their teeth into,” he says.

This year's Telluride by the Sea festival fulfills all the hopes on Curtis' balanced list. As detailed on The Music Hall's website, the films slated to screen for 2017 are:

Downsizing

Alexander Payne's poignant, funny film "Nebraska" was a huge hit at TBTS in 2014. Now this popular writer/director (The Descendants, Sideways) is back with a disarming romantic comedy and science fiction satire about “going small” that's already generating Oscar buzz. Matt Damon stars, as a modest occupational therapist from Omaha. He and his wife, played by Kristen Wiig, buy in to a medical procedure to shrink themselves that scientists promise will not only help stem overpopulation, but will also allow them to live luxuriously. The stellar cast includes Christoph Waltz, Hong Chau, Laura Dern, Neil Patrick Harris, and Margo Martindale

The Other Side of Hope

Known for his masterful mixing of offbeat humor with an unflinching and compassionate eye, Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki brings us a deeply felt, hilarious, and heartbreaking refugee buddy movie that speaks to our times. Khaled (Sherwan Haji), a Syrian refugee, arrives in Helsinki on a cargo ship in the most incongruous fashion. Wikström (Sakari Kuosmanen), an aging bourgeois businessman, abandons his wife with bitterly droll brevity, taking to the road to pursue his dream of starting a restaurant. Eventually, inevitably, and with wondrous strangeness, their paths cross—and Khaled tells the story of his harrowing journey towards safety.

Hostiles

Christian Bale and filmmaker Scott Cooper (Crazy Heart, Black Mass) reunite in this searing, insightful drama set in the untamed Wild West in 1892. Bale plays Captain Joe Blocker who, after decades of fighting bloody battles with “hostile” indigenous people, reluctantly agrees to transport a dying chief (Wes Studi) safely to his tribal home in Montana. Things grow more complicated when he must give protection to a grief-stricken widow (Rosamund Pike), who has endured frontier violence at its most terrifying. Bale gives one of his finest performances as a man forced to question lifelong beliefs as he travels an anguished road towards redemption.

The Shape of Water

What happens when a timid woman without a voice connects on the deepest level with a magical creature being secretly held and tortured? Guillermo del Toro directs brilliant actor Sally Hawkins as Elisa, a lonely-heart mopping floors in a Baltimore government lab in 1962, whose life is forever changed by this encounter. The stellar cast includes Michael Shannon as an obsessive federal agent determined to dissect the “beast,” Octavia Spencer as a no-nonsense work buddy, Richard Jenkins as Elisa's artist neighbor with frustrated romantic longings, and Michael Stuhlbarg as a scientist with mixed emotions.

First Reformed

A new romantic thriller from iconic writer-director Paul Schrader (Raging Bull), known for immortalizing obsessive heroes who live on the razor's edge between violence and salvation. Ethan Hawke stars as Reverend Toller, a grieving, ex-military chaplain who manages his acute spiritual loneliness while ministering to a tiny congregation in wintry, upstate New York. When Mary (Amanda Seyfried), a member of his congregation, asks him to counsel her troubled husband, a radical environmentalist, Toller finds himself confronted with a series of agonizing moral choices.

Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool

Romance sparks when legendary femme fatale Gloria Grahame (Annette Bening), attempting to revive her career on the British stage, crosses paths with Peter Turner (Jamie Bell), an aspiring English actor in his 20s. Based on Turner's real-life memoir, the movie follows the passionate relationship of the once-glamorous Oscar-winning movie star and her young lover as they make an instantaneous connection that ultimately deepens into a relationship tested to the limits by events beyond their control. Directed by Paul McGuigan with a screenplay by Matthew Greenhaigh, also stars Vanessa Redgrave and Julie Waters.

Patron and Weekend Passholders will also have the opportunity to see the three additional films screening at The Loft's “Spotlight” series. Again hosted by Telluride veteran Trevor Bartlett, this year's program marks the first time these movies will be focused on one specific person: writer/director Paul Schrader. Curtis explains that the selections for “Spotlight” are “predominantly based on highlighting some aspect of the Telluride Film Festival. It's kind of like an homage to the parent festival."

In prior years, "Spotlight" featured collections of silentfilms, documentaries, and movies in the genre of film noir. Schrader's “First Reformed” is one of the six new films showing this weekend, which is why Curtis says this choice “just made perfect sense. He's somewhat of an unsung hero. He's not as well-known as many filmmakers. I think that Telluride Film Festival has often dedicated some part of their festival to highlighting those who are lesser known, those who deserve to be better known in the mind of cinephiles worldwide. I think it's really a perfect one.”

With his eloquence, extensive knowledge of cinema and penchant for always being able to suss out the finer details of a film, Bartlett will guide audiences through Schrader's “Taxi Driver,” “Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters,” and “Affliction” throughout Saturday and Sunday's “Spotlight” series.

Though viewing and talking about film is the primary focus of Telluride by the Sea, the long weekend is full of off-screen fun, too. Friday night brings “The John Mayer Five” jazz band back to kick off the festivities. Curtis is glad to have the group performing what he calls “super celebratory music” that will keep people dancing as lines develop on Chestnut Street.

For those who purchase a Patron Pass, the traditional opening night Patron Passholder Party will take place at The Loft following the first screening. Local restaurant Row 34 will be catering the event.

Usually thrown as a wrap party on Sunday night to close out Telluride by the Sea, the Festival Party is giving weekend attendees another first. Curtis and company are now moving the bash to Saturday. “The whole idea is that people will be less tuckered out. Often times by Sunday evening people are so ready to lay down in bed and get back to their Monday routines. Whereas on Saturday night, I think people will have more energy left, so that should be a neat change,” explains Curtis.

Portsmouth Brewery will again be providing food for the celebration, held at the Historic Theater, and this year, the party is also more inclusive. Those who have a ticket to the Saturday night movie, meaning anyone with a Patron Pass, Weekend Pass, or an individual ticket, can stay, eat, drink, be merry, and talk about cinema at the celebration.

While he knows some attendees may only be able to come out for one movie, Curtis encourages everyone to buy a pass for the entire weekend, and indicates the Patron Passes are selling quickly. He believes it's best to plan on “counting yourself in for at least the main six films at the Historic Theater which are all, of course, just premiering. If not also adding in The Loft series…because it's an immersion. It pays off. Spending the whole weekend with brand- new films by top notch filmmakers and celebrating the art of cinema. That's what it's all about,” he states.

For more information on Telluride by the Sea's entire screening and festival schedule, and to purchase passes, visit www.themusichall.org.

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